Office of Records That Should Not Exist

The Runnymede Filing

HAEB-1215-17B CLOSED BY DEFINITION CAP Rev. 12.4

Event class

HN-1, Documentary irregularity

Public impact

Level 5, Continuity

Issuing office

Office of Records That Should Not Exist

Date of event

June 1215

Date opened

February 2, 2026

Date closed

March 6, 1987

Published

August 12, 2026

Case summary

HAEB reviewed a property receipt attached to a surviving copy of the charter granted at Runnymede in June 1215.

The receipt is HAEB Form 17-B, Declaration of Out-of-Period Property, at Revision 12.4. It cites a policy adopted in 1987. It is signed as custodian by Employee 000.

The Office of Records That Should Not Exist determined that the receipt is administrative attachment and not historical content. Content is subject to accuracy review. Attachment is not.

The receipt is valid. Its date is not.

Historical anchor

King John sealed the charter at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, under pressure from rebellious barons. He did not sign it. The document was authenticated with a seal.

Pope Innocent III annulled the charter about ten weeks later and England went to war. It was reissued after John’s death, and the version that entered English law is the reissue of 1225, confirmed again in 1297. Four exemplifications of the 1215 charter survive.

The familiar numbered clauses are not in the document. The 1215 charter is a single sheet of continuous Latin text with no clause divisions and no numbers. The numbering in general use was supplied by Sir William Blackstone in his critical edition of 1759, which gave the charter sixty-three chapters.

HAEB accepts these facts under the Current Approved Past.

The Bureau’s certification of the event is a separate matter and is not affected by this docket.

Reported nonconformity

In January 2026, during a conservation survey conducted under a loan agreement the Bureau does not describe in public dockets, a second sheet was recorded in contact with the reverse of one of the surviving copies.

The sheet carries:

1. The heading HAEB FORM 17-B, DECLARATION OF OUT-OF-PERIOD PROPERTY.
2. The revision line Rev. 12.4.
3. A property description: one field device, glass and polymer, tag number illegible.
4. A policy citation: the 1987 revision to the Continuity and Prior Events Act of 1908.
5. A case reference: ████████████
6. A custodian signature: Employee 000.
7. A receipt line: RETURNED TO CUSTODY. NO LOSS OCCURRED.

Ink, paper, hand, and impression are addressed in EV-1215-17B.

The Office of Internal Historical Affairs observed that the Continuity and Prior Events Act of 1908 cannot be located, and that its 1987 revision therefore cannot be compared with the text it revises. The observation was recorded. It did not affect the validity of the citation.

Jurisdiction

The Office of Records That Should Not Exist accepted the matter under Directive 9.9.

The Office declined to refer the matter to the Office of Anachronism Control on the ground that the receipt is a record and not property. The Office of Anachronism Control declined to accept a referral it had not received.

The Office of General Counsel advised:

1. Bureau records are governed by the policy in effect at the time of review, not by the date printed on the record.
2. The receipt was reviewed in 2026.
3. The 1987 revision was in effect in 2026.
4. The receipt therefore complies.
5. A complying receipt establishes what it states.
6. What it states is that the Bureau held property in the district in June 1215.

Counsel was asked whether the Bureau existed in June 1215. Counsel replied that the question was not presented.

Evidence register

EV-1215-17B

The property receipt. The full evidence record is held separately and governs material analysis, hand comparison, and the impression of the custodian signature.

Disposition: RETAIN IN PLACE

EV-1215-17B-02

Catalog comparison, before and during the detachment trial.

Before: sixty-three numbered chapters.

During: sixty-two.

The chapter number absent from the second column is withheld: ██

EV-1215-17B-03

Correspondence with the holding institution.

The institution asked which chapter it should now describe.

The Office replied that catalog descriptions are the responsibility of the institution that maintains them.

EV-1215-17B-04

Personnel confirmation regarding the custodian signature.

The Office of Personnel confirms that no personnel record exists for Employee 000, that no such record has ever existed, and that the signature is nonetheless the earliest signature in the Bureau’s holdings.

The confirmation is countersigned by Employee 000.

Sequence of Bureau activity

1. Survey

The second sheet was recorded in January 2026 by a conservator who described it in the survey notes as “modern insert, remove.” The note was retained. The instruction was not carried out at that time.

2. Classification

The receipt was classified under Directive 9.9 as a record whose existence conflicts with the record. It is held by the Office. It is not published, not transferred, and not destroyed.

Retention: permanent, beginning June 1215.

3. Detachment trial

Detachment was authorized in February 2026 to restore the charter copy to its approved condition.

Conservators separated the sheets under observation. During the two hours the sheets were apart, participating catalogs described the charter as containing sixty-two numbered chapters. On reattachment the count returned to sixty-three in four catalogs of six.

The Bureau does not characterize the interval as a change. A catalog description is not the charter.

4. Determination

The Office determined that the receipt is administrative attachment and not historical content.

Attachment is not reviewed for accuracy. It is reviewed for completeness. The receipt is complete.

5. Effect of the governing policy

The 1987 revision provides that a determination takes effect on the date the governing policy was adopted.

The matter therefore closed on March 6, 1987, and was opened on February 2, 2026.

The docket records both dates. The Bureau does not rank its own dates.

6. Disposition

The disposition is signed by Elias P. Thorne, Acting Director, Records That Should Not Exist.

Mr. Thorne’s personnel file records a termination date. The Office has not identified a requirement that a signature precede one.

Corrective action

HAEB completed the following:

1. Reattached the receipt in its recorded position.
2. Amended the records manual to provide that a Bureau record bearing an impossible date is dated, and is not impossible.
3. Directed that no further detachment be attempted, on the ground that the previous attempt established what a detachment does.
4. Added the receipt to the schedule of documents cited as evidence of Bureau jurisdiction before 1908.
5. Declined to publish the schedule.

Observed consequence

1. The receipt is the earliest item on the jurisdiction schedule. The schedule has four entries. No two of them agree on a founding year, and the Bureau cites all four.
2. Two catalogs did not restore the sixty-third chapter and now describe sixty-two. The Bureau has recorded the difference as a formatting difference and closed the inquiry.
3. A request to identify the absent chapter number was denied. Identifying it would require reproducing it.
4. The conservator who wrote “modern insert, remove” has asked that the survey note be amended. The note is part of the record of the survey and has been retained as written.

Finding

1. The receipt exists.
2. The receipt is a Bureau record.
3. The receipt complies with the policy in effect at the time of its review.
4. The receipt is not historical content and is not part of the Official Record.
5. The receipt is evidence of Bureau custody in the district in June 1215.
6. Items 4 and 5 are not in conflict. Item 4 governs publication. Item 5 governs authority.

The charter continues to have occurred.

Disposition

CLOSED BY DEFINITION

The receipt remains attached and remains unpublished. Access is available to the holding institution, to Bureau staff with a records purpose, and to Employee 000.

Administrative attachment. Not historical content

Public guidance

No action is required of the public.

Persons who hold a document to which HAEB paperwork dated before 1908 is attached should not remove the paperwork. Removal may alter the description of the document rather than the document. Retain the item as found and file HAEB Form 17-B.

Researchers who require a chapter number the Bureau has withheld should consult an edition published before 2026. The Bureau does not maintain a list of such editions and does not recommend one.

Institutions revising a catalog description should file HAEB Form 0, Request to Establish Prior Existence, in respect of the description and not in respect of the document.

The charter was granted in June 1215 and continues to have been granted. Two catalogs describe it differently. The document is unchanged.

The event continues to have occurred.